


lately, I've been counting my stars

by PandaPaladin



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: (Do you see where I'm going?), AU where Kryptonians live for as long as the sun does, F/F, Fluff, Heavy Angst, Me alternately tagging this as fluff and angst: PARKOUR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-24 17:23:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20911331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandaPaladin/pseuds/PandaPaladin
Summary: “You’re beautiful,” Kara said softly for the fourteenth time that night. “I don’t care how many times you point out that you’re not. It’s never going to change my mind.”Because to Kara, Lena really was the loveliest thing, not even second to diamonds and the cosmos. So just for the night, Lena stayed silent. She wasn’t vain, she wasn’t even listening to half of Kara’s compliments— but saying those things made Kara’s eyes light up like a billion zircon-colored stars, and she wanted to stare at them for as long as she still could, because even the broadest cliff side had an end.





	lately, I've been counting my stars

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in a couple hours TOPS as a writing exercise because I have two WIPs open whoops. I don't even know what this is, really, but take it from my grubby little hands anyway?? In Superman continuity, there's never really a set expiration date for Kryptonians under a yellow sun, so I wrote something about it as a break between my classes. 
> 
> **ALSO AS A WARNING/SPOILER:** Kara and Lena die in the end (hence the archive warning) but I PROMISE YOU it's not as angsty as you think it is I SWEAR

When Kara asked her out on a sunny afternoon, with pink and purple flowers and a smile that held so much adoration and disquiet, Lena was quick on her feet to say _ yes. _

The sun was blinding on their first official date, a reflection of the way they both felt about the other. They practically bounced on their feet the entire time they held hands, side by side, on the way to a new restaurant a half hour away from their work. It seemed like birds were chirping above them the entire time they walked and chatted, diving around their shoulders as if the very creatures on Earth were happy to see two women so void of warmth become so in love. 

And for months, Lena felt like she was treading on the sky’s highest limit. Everyday she got to wake up to Kara’s radiant smile, Kara’s daily complaint of not having enough to eat, Kara’s bouncy feet, Kara’s arms around her waist. It was _ Kara, Kara, Kara _everyday, for the rest of her life— there was nothing she could feel sad about.

On game nights with their circle of friends, they had no boundaries when it came to affection. They’d snuggle up and whisper “I love you”s and congratulate each other with fleeting kisses on the lips, not a single care for the looks and melodramatic _ “ew” _s they got from their friends. They were practically attached to the hip, every movement and turn of the head in sync to each other as if they were two halves of a modeled piece of technology. 

“Stop making out like teenagers!” Alex scolded them one night, whipping her sister with a well-aimed pillow to the head. Kara’s teeth nearly clashed with hers, and they fell apart in fits of laughter. “You’re with_ people. _Have some consideration.”

So they stopped. But they glanced at each other, Kara’s arm still draped over her shoulder, and smiled with twinkles in their eyes. If Lena looked hard enough, she could count the stars in her girlfriend’s eyes. 

And she’d never be able to stop counting, because Kara Danvers had every single star immersed in her very existence.

_ Like teenagers, like teenagers, _that was the only thing their friends and coworkers ever described them as. When they ran off part way during work, they were kids. When they giggled and laughed and done slanderous, shameless things in the quiet and safety of a top floor office, they were teenagers— their energy, their love, and their bubbly laughter couldn’t ever belong to two twenty-something women. 

On their bed, Lena was flipping through articles on her tablet, her reading glasses perched sideways on her face and her hair done up in a messy hair bun.

She felt Kara staring holes into the side of her face, so she put her tablet down and looked pointedly. Her breath was sucked out of her lungs like a straw, because she stared back to the face of the woman that shone brighter than their ancient sun. 

A tilt of the lips from Kara— she looked so young, so bright. She looked as if she just stepped off a dizzying carnival ride with a group of college friends, her grin genuine and too loving to feel the weight of her experience. 

It wasn’t as if Kara was forever stuck in glossy paper. She had bad days too. She had _ horrible _days, ones where Lena had to hold her tight and rub her back in order to quench her racking sobs, cries for people in the middle of the night that she couldn’t get back. 

But on their bed, on a clear soundless night, Kara was smiling with crinkles in her eyes.

“You’re beautiful,” she said, and Lena couldn’t stop herself from diving down to fit their lips together in a kiss even if she gathered the courage of a thousand Supergirls. 

* * *

The teenaged feeling she had with Kara went away in two years. 

No, it was never because they fought too much, or because she grew too familiar with Kara’s love. If anything, she felt like their love was a bullet, ricocheting around a boltless room. There were always adventures, even if some of those adventures were their lives being threatened. 

For the first time in two years, since Kara’s pink and purple bouquet and her nervous tug around the collar, Lena felt old. Or, older, she should think, because the singular gray hair she plucked out made her burst out crying on the morning of her wedding day.

Kelly rubbed her back in soothing circles while Alex rushed around to find her a water bottle. Nia, bless her soul, rushed out with a whirlwind of an excuse, one that Lena couldn’t hear through her sniffling sobs.

“Weddings can be stressful,” Kelly said gently, her hand still pressed against Lena’s back, “trust me, I know. It’s okay.”

“But it’s just a gray hair,” she wailed, and pushed her hands back against her face to cry again. “Then again, it’s a _ gray hair. _ I’m getting so— so—” _ old, _she wanted to end it with, but her hiccups overtook her words. 

Kelly’s hand was gone from her back. She wanted to take Kelly’s wrist and insist it come back, like a baby who needed comfort, but she swallowed her words when she caught sight of her wife-to-be in the mirror. 

“Lena?” Kara said softly, and her name on Kara’s tongue was all she needed to sob one more time.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, and gulped down a hiccup. She was Lena Luthor— Luthors don’t cry. But even then, seeing Kara look so radiant in her blonde curls and freshly washed face almost made her burst out crying again, for a whole new reason. Her gray hair was forgotten for exactly seven seconds.

Kara wrinkled her nose at her words. “Earth traditions suck,” she declared, and strode quickly over to Lena’s side. She sat down on the empty stool and clasped her hands tightly around Lena’s. It was like being engulfed in warmth, both by the rounded edges of Kara’s eyes and the tightness of her grip. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked, and words have never been spoken so kindly to Lena.

“I have a gray hair,” Lena told her, sniffling and wiping at her eyes for stray tears. She only realized then how stupid her reason for bawling was. Just a singular gray hair— she expected Kara to burst out laughing, or to at least crack a joke and a smile at her antics.

But instead Kara caressed her cheek, her eyes bright with warmth, just like the first time they kissed on her windy doorstep. 

“I love you,” Kara said firmly. Lena’s heart beat wildly in her chest. “I love you more than anything in this world. That’s why I’m going to marry you, that’s why I’m gonna spend every day of my life with you, loving you, and telling you over and over that— _ Rao, _ Lena I don’t care how many times I have to say it— that you’re _ beautiful. _That you’re everything I could ever need.”

And then they were both crying, their foreheads pressed together and hands still clasped. Kelly and Alex were long gone, leaving them in the room to say their sweet nothings. 

Later that night, when they cried more during their vows and their promises to protect one another, Kara and Lena danced the night away. 

“You are my sun,” Kara had said in her vows, and her words rang through Lena’s head as they danced and swung around each other like two magnets constantly being parted and pulled. “Do you know that feeling you get when you’ve been waiting for the rain to stop and it does, and the clouds pull apart and you hear birds and suddenly the pavement’s yellow because of the sunlight? That’s you, Lena. That’s you walking into my life.”

Lena giggled madly when Kara twirled her again and again, and she couldn’t muster up the words to tell her to stop before her world kept spinning forever. Then Kara caught her by the shoulders, Lena’s back pressed against her chest, and Kara slotted the distance between them with an ardent kiss. People whistled and cheered around them, but Lena only heard the breath tickling on the shell of her ear. 

Kara kissed the tip of her ear, then said, words only for her, _ “You’re beautiful.” _

When they danced again, her feet so sore that she was sure it would leave a bruise in the morning and Kara’s eyes only turning to look at her, Lena believed those words, the plucked gray hair in the dressing room long forgotten.

* * *

On the third anniversary of their wedding, they went out for the week. Originally, Lena pushed for a getaway weekend to somewhere like the Bahamas— but Kara was adamant to refuse. She wanted a whole seven days for themselves, citing that “National City could live without Supergirl and Lena freakin’ Luthor for a week”. J’onn could take over, along with mix-and-match group of alien defenders that accumulated over the years. 

It took a while for Lena to say yes, but when she did, Kara burst into the sky with her excitement. She took Lena by the hand and tugged her close, whispering excitedly about their plans to get away.

It was such a sweet sight that Lena melted under her wife’s eager look, her fingers carded through blonde locks. Kara kept chattering on excitedly, never once stopping to catch her breath.

The corners of her eyes still crinkled when she smiled. She had wrinkles when she grinned. When she talked, she sounded older, wiser than she was when they first met. Kara still had a never-ending supply of energy, but they always joked that it was because of her constant supply of calories from seventy boxes of Chinese take out.

But with those in mind, Lena had accumulated many things over the years. There was a prominent wrinkle in the left side of her face when she smiled now. When she arched her eyebrows, her brow dimpled as well. Her eyesight, which used to be sharper than a nail that pierced through the looks of a nervous businessman, was deteriorating, subdued only by the help of permanent glasses (though contacts were always her plan A). 

As if noticing the sudden change in her mood, Kara stopped her chatter, craning her head to look up at Lena with a frown.

“Are you okay?” she asked, and Lena blinked. “You got really quiet.”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to talk over you, Kara,” she teased.

“You know what I mean.” Kara flipped over onto her stomach. “What’s wrong?” she asked again, and her big soulful eyes stared into Lena’s, like she was coaxing an answer out of her by a look alone. There was a reason Lena could rarely say no to her.

“I look older,” she whispered, her words so hushed that it felt as if she was saying something taboo. 

Kara tilted her head to the side, mirth in her eyes. “Well, we don’t exactly time travel backwards, babe,” she joked, laughter filling the room.

Lena only joined for a couple seconds. It was subdued when she felt the weight of the situation, her own anxiety running higher than she usually let it, and took both sides of Kara’s face in her hands. At her serious expression, Kara stopped laughing, frowning at her with a worried look. Lena took a shaky breath, collecting her thoughts before spilling them out.

“Kara,” she said, and the name already sounded so somber on her lips. “Do Kryptonians have a… longer lifespan?”

“No,” Kara said, and tilted her lips to the side in thought. She worked her jaw. “I’m pretty sure it’s no. I mean, Kal and I aged normally. He was a baby and grew up to be a toddler when he was supposed to, then became a teen when he was supposed to, etcetera etcetera.”

“Yes, but—” Lena gulped. She dragged her thumb over Kara’s cheekbone to soothe herself, and Kara closed her eyes and leaned into the touch. She felt herself relax. “Have you ever noticed that you… you look _ exactly _the same as we did when we were first met?”

Kara fluttered her eyes open at that. She looked deep in thought for a moment before answering, her eyebrows pulled together and her bottom lip sucked in to chew relentlessly. “I wouldn’t say _ exactly _the same,” she argued, shifting her weight, “I feel a bit older.”

“Experience and maturity isn’t the same thing as age,” Lena insisted. When she swiped her thumb again, flickering her eyes for anything different about the woman in front of her, she felt sick. 

She couldn’t find anything _ different. _

Finding the panic in her face, Kara reached over and planted a kiss on her forehead. “If you’re so worried about it, we can go to Brainy,” she said, and smiled at Lena in hopes to reassure her. Her smile was a bit wonky at the end. Like she was scared herself.

Feeling like it was the best thing to do, they went to Brainy immediately after. Flying in Kara’s arms wasn’t her favorite means of transportation, but she knew she was safe snuggled in the Girl of Steel’s arms, and it was definitely the fastest. And fast, unfortunately, was what they needed to get rid of their anxiety about this.

She knew, in the back of her head, that it was a stupid fear. It was the _ stupidest _fear to have. People aged differently, all at different rates, but they always fell under the same constant. Kara even told her, reminded her, that she aged normally on Earth from thirteen to thirty. 

Brainy didn’t complain once when they knocked on his door at two in the morning. He only said a brief goodbye to a sleepy Nia, before sliding out of the door and taking them to the DEO for accurate testing. 

Somehow, Alex caught wind of their situation and darted away to join them, and Lena’s scowling sister-in-law greeted them at the door. However, she wasn’t scowling now. There was a look on her face that Lena never saw before. She still had her arms crossed protectively over her body, ushering them to the lab with an air of kind professionalism— it took Lena to realize that she was here because she was curious too.

To know if her sister would largely outlive them.

Brainy was quick to work, and with Alex and Lena by his side, experimenting was more than 100% efficient. Kara sat helplessly on the edge of a rigid bed, an IV drip in her arm (mixed with 0.02% kryptonite) and a potsticker in her mouth. Lena fed her periodically to keep her wife happy, and Kara was more than happy to comply. Alex jokingly made a barfing face at Brainy behind their backs.

Eventually, with all of the data in their computers, Brainy was the one to comb through it. Alex and Lena sat beside Kara, reticent and immobile. Kara tried to cheer them up by making jokes, though it fell flatly. 

There was commotion out of the door by the time Brainy straightened up. There were loud cheers and greetings, but Lena barely had the attention span to crane her neck to look. All she could feel was the blood rushing into her ears. She could only feel the heavy hand entwined with hers, a rock that held her steady.

Kara squeezed her hand. 

“From birth to adulthood, Kara’s cells progressed as normally as a human’s typically would,” Brainy started them off, clearing his throat and clasping his hands in front of him. He spread his legs a little, grounding himself a couple feet away from them. “It went through cell division like a human, except for some… unique properties, only given to her by the radiation of the yellow sun. It doesn’t stop her from aging, though.”

Lena breathed out a sigh of relief. Kara slumped beside her, and she could’ve sworn she heard Alex whisper a “Thank God”. 

Brainy’s look was stony. He often looked that way, almost never amused with a situation and always calculating his steps. But the way he looked was almost set— like a doctor before breaking the news to a deceased patient’s family. Lena’s hypothesis was only solidified when he breathed out heavily, hanging his head before looking back up at them. The motions were so uncharacterized with Brainy that both of the Danvers picked up on it immediately after she did. 

“I… debated with myself if I should tell you the news now, or after I call the rest of game night’s individuals to break it all at once but,” Brainy said, and the furrow in his brow almost looked genuinely _ sad, _“there’s a 72% chance that telling everyone all at once could cause a small pandemonium. And this— this feels more intimate. To my better judgement, I feel like it’s the right thing to do.”

“What happened, Brainy?” Alex said gently, but the tremor in her voice shook so clearly that Lena wanted to wrap her in a hug just as badly as she wanted it the other way around. Kara said nothing beside her. The hand in hers felt twice as heavy.

“Her cells indeed went through the same progression as a human’s,” Brainy began, and Lena could’ve sworn she heard a slight break in his voice, “but they stopped once they reached peak adulthood. Around twenty five. The yellow sun radiation halted typical aging to 99.907 percent. So for as long as Kara’s in orbit of the yellow sun, she… cannot age. In essence, she’s immortal.”

“I was going to tell you.” When they turned their heads around, they looked face to face with the other Super. His face was set in a solemn look, and his wife stood by his side with dismal frown, straight at Lena. “I didn’t know how to break it to you, Kara.”

Instead of facing her cousin, Kara hopped off the hospital bed and marched out of the room, the familiar sounds of being shot into the sky ringing in Lena’s ears. 

Instead of crying her heart out like she expected, Lena spent her night in Lois Lane’s arms, her dry eyes pricking and her heart so heavy in her chest. She couldn’t think about her own problems right now. Not of how to mask their relationship when the age gap was too prominent, not of dying alone.

She could only think of Kara, in the distant future, alone and afraid because she and every person she ever loved had lived their life. 

She used to think, so long ago in the highs of their relationship, how wonderful it was to love a person that death couldn’t hold. But now it was a curse, never unbreakable, and it was one that made her feel so sick that she swayed in Lois’ arms. 

“It took me a while too,” Lois crooned, stroking her hair, “and if I’m being honest, I still haven’t gotten over it. But you two will get through it.”

“She’s never going to die,” she said, and her words felt like bile in her own mouth.

“And then love her,” Lois insisted. “Love with every day of your life. And never let her go.”

_ I already was, _ Lena thought. _ But now I’ll love her twice as much, and twice as hard. _

And it won’t be enough love to fill Kara’s lifetime, but it will be enough for now. For now is a gift she couldn’t throw away. If she thought that life was precious before, with a girlfriend that threw herself into danger everyday of her life, then it was precious now.

* * *

After months about solidifying exactly what they wanted and how to go about it, Kara and Lena adopted a child. 

Two, actually. Two baby girls, a beacon of light in their lives that made Kara fight harder and safer, and Lena become more resilient in her work. It was a decision that took dozens of pillow talks, and ones specifically about Kara’s lifetime. In the end, it didn’t matter— “If I could spend loving people _ with _you, I’d do in a heartbeat,” she said on their thirteenth pillow talk, and that was it. They took turns taking time from their duties to spend it with their girls, and it was the best decision they ever made.

When they turned a year old, Kara and Lena stayed home to throw them a birthday party, complete with dinosaurs and potstickers (“They got your stomach,” Lena teased, watching her three girls hound the mountain of food on the table). There were lots of pinatas and candy, along with singing and gifts from their friends that they were certain they never going to use. 

At the end, with their kids sleeping peacefully after a long day, they cuddled on the bed to watch a buddy cop show. Every time Kara laughed, Lena could feel it pressing against her back. She wouldn’t want to spend a Friday night any other way. 

She craned her neck upwards, and Kara looked down at her in curiosity. The glow from their TV gave her face a mystic look, reds and blues and yellows of an action scene accenting a jawline and the soft curve of her nose. When Kara smiled down at her, Lena felt like couch beneath her was swaying.

There was age in her eyes. Familiar crinkles from their youth, yet stronger and somehow more… older. And it suited her. Years and years of being Supergirl and holding Earth up on her shoulders wasn’t an easy task. Mentally, emotionally, every part of her being— Kara Danvers was getting old. 

“I love you,” Lena said, and cupped her hands against the side of her wife’s face. “And I’ll love you to the ends of the world.”

“And I’ll love you beyond that, Lena,” Kara responded, her words hushed. The soft curves of her face made her gentle words that much sweeter, and Lena had to squeeze her eyes shut. “If this Earth dies and the sun goes out, you'll be the one on my mind. You always will be.”

"You're so cliche," she muttered, and Kara snorted. 

When Lena opened her eyes, Kara was still looking at her. Their buddy cop movie was long forgotten, the dialogue of the two characters providing a lulled effect to Lena’s body. Years together meant that they could easily read the looks on each other’s faces. A slight twitch of the cheek, fluttering eyes closed— it was as easy as reading a book. But the most interesting book in the entire world, a novel Lena couldn’t put down even if her eyes were aching and her body was begging for sleep.

_ I didn’t mean the sun, like the one in our sky, _ Kara told her silently. _ When you go, when you’re not here with me anymore— you’ll always be my favorite star in the galaxy. _

* * *

It felt like forever since the last time they went out for an evening, just the two of them. Kara was the one who brought it up, complaining and whining and circling Lena in the air about how they needed quality time together, just for one night. She somehow managed to convince Alex to take care of their rascals for them, and convinced Lena to let her put down her gloves and lab coat just for a night.

“One night,” she promised, and opened the door for Lena, “one night and I won’t bother you for another bazillion months because _ apparently, _you don’t have enough time for your—”

“You’re sleeping on the couch tonight,” Lena told her, and Kara gave her an apologetic grin in response. It was an empty threat, words made by a barking dog on a leash, because Lena hasn’t managed to successfully force Kara to sleep by herself in years. (And really, forcing Kara to sleep alone was forcing herself to sleep alone— and having a Kryptonian partner was like having a portable cuddly space heater). 

They were ushered to their seats without the man at the front door having to even check their names on the list. He only unclipped the belt, did a little bow, and thanked them for coming. Kara gave her a cheeky kiss on the lips, slithering her arm around Lena’s waist, and even pulled out her chair for her at their table.

“What a gentleman,” Lena teased, sitting down on her chair with eyes tracking Kara’s every movement.

“Only the best for you,” Kara said with a wink. She sat down and pushed her chair in, and their waiter immediately placed two menus in front of them. 

“One of everything,” Lena told the waiter, not once touching the glossy menu in front of her. Kara frowned at her. She rolled her eyes and added, “Everything except the vegetable medley soup.”

Unsurprised, the waiter took back their menus after confirming with Lena about her choice of wine (“Red wine over white wine all day every day in the Luthor-Danvers household,” Kara said proudly, and Lena hit her hand gently). In the meantime, they chatted about their days, about their friends’ recent life landmarks, about anything they could talk about. 

Kara ate her third course in record time, only stopping once to gulp down some wine to wash it all down. Lena watched her in amusement, eating her salad and parfait with adoration for the woman she chose to spend her life with. It was an adventure spending time with Kara everyday. 

Her hands slightly shaking, she took another sip of her wine. Kara stared at her hand. She glanced up to Lena’s eyes.

“You’ve been shaking a lot lately,” she said, frowning a bit to herself. “Are you cold? I could run down and get you a thicker jacket.”

“I’m staying warm, I promise,” Lena assured her, and lifted her wine to her lips again. She actively forced her hand to stay steady this time. It worked. When she finished, she smacked her lips and gave Kara a pointed look. “I think I’m just a little tipsy, if I’m being honest.”

Kara laughed. Taking it as a challenge, she took the wine bottle and poured herself some more, then gulped it down in two swallows. Lena tried not to roll her eyes too much.

In the midst of Kara’s gossip about the fight that broke out in her office, she stopped, dead in her tracks.

  
“Honey?” Lena said, putting down her fork to look at Kara. She wrinkled her brow.

Working quickly, Kara pulled out a compact mirror. She checked all around her face, squishing her lips together and checking underneath her eyes. She muttered something like “I thought I saw something in the reflection of that guy’s bowl”, before shutting up to squint and do her work.

When she found what she wanted, Kara looked like she was ready to vibrate off her seat. She tugged at her hair, lifting it upwards until the other strands she wasn’t holding fell down. When all she was holding was a light piece of hair, she plucked it out. She stared.

She kept staring. Lena stared between the thing between her fingers and her face. She was bleary-eyed from working so late that day, and the hair looked nearly invisible in Kara’s fingertips. 

“It’s gray,” Kara told her. She looked up at Lena. More excitedly, she said, “It’s _ gray._”

Lena, being the realist that she was, cleared her throat. Her fork still down but clutched in her hand, she said, “It could be the lighting in the room, Kara.”

“No, no! Look.” Kara shoved the thin strand in Lena’s face. She had to squint to even see it, leaning forward in her chair. And it was, in fact, very much gray. Like the color of some of the streaks in Lena’s hair, untended and uncared for because she felt that it wasn’t honest to dye them away like people had done with the illustration of their age. “It’s really gray!” Kara said, and she jumped in her seat like a child being told that they were going to a candy shop after.

Out of context, being excited over a gray hair was something that Lena thought nobody was capable of doing. 

“It could be plaster from a fight, love,” she said gently. She started playing with her salad. “Or paint. We were working on Alex and Kelly’s new room yesterday, remember?”

“No, but it’s _ gray, _ Lena,” Kara insisted. “There’s nothing on it! Look, we can prove it— let’s go to the DEO. Or your lab. Or literally anywhere that you can check this under a microscope. It’s _ real._”

“I don’t think checking if gray hairs are valid is laboratory worthy, Kara.”

“In my case, it is.” Kara widened her eyes, leaning forward to look at Lena. Her big blue eyes reminded her so much of their kids, when they got home school and begged her to stick their hand in the cookie jar for _ just a couple seconds, mom, please. _“Please, Lena? I know you’re curious too.”

“I don’t want to get my hopes up,” she admitted quietly.

At that, Kara shut her mouth. She leaned back against her chair, looking guilty and sad. “Sorry,” she said, and hung her head as if Lena said the worse news she ever told her, “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

Then Lena weighed out her pros and cons. She weighed out the odds of this situation, before setting down her fork and making a decision.

“Let’s go to the DEO,” she said, and stood up.

Kara’s eyes widened. “Wait— right now?” 

“Of course,” Lena told her, and gave her a nasty look. “But don’t drop your hair! That’s the entire reason we’re going.”

“Right, right, oops,” Kara said quickly, and gathered her minuscule strand of hair and followed her wife out of the door with a kiss on the cheek. 

Brainy scanned the strand of hair for them. He said that it was authentic, but not to keep their hopes too high. “There’s a 99.34% chance it’s not from age,” he informed them. “Being Supergirl is stressful, after all. If anything, I find it miraculous that Kara only has one for the time being.”

They went home with a heavier heart than they both cared to admit.

They cuddled on the couch and put on an animated movie, something bright and cheerful to cheer them up. It always seemed to work during family night— but without the girls to hound them about the anamorphic creatures on screen, it felt almost lonely. 

Almost, because having Kara pressed against her was something that made her want to sob out of happiness and heartache all at once.

“Lena?” Kara said halfway into their movie, her voice croaky from unuse.

“Yeah?” She looked up.

“How do you feel if I rebranded Supergirl?”

Lena arched an eyebrow in confusion. “Rebranded?” she repeated, and Kara nodded. “As in… changing your name? Or your suit?”

“My name,” Kara explained. “Because Supergirl isn’t a girl anymore— technically.”

“The media seems to disagree,” Lena said thoughtfully. There were many debates on TV about Kara’s anti-aging power. Some claimed that side by side pictures of Supergirl with her first appearance and her latest one were clearly different, a sign that she was maturing, if not at least slowly. Others claimed that it was a trick of the light all together, that Supergirl was an alien and her invulnerability included the clutches of natural death. 

But they all agreed that it was a good thing, to have Supergirl around longer than the typical lifespan of a human.

As Kara Danvers, it wasn’t easy either. She tried to deter the priers and the ones who knew her the longest by slouching more, by complaining about old bones and claiming that she was too tired to go out and party at nine in the evening. And for the most part, it worked. But they both knew that her physical appearance and saying it was young blood was going to run out eventually. 

“Yeah but _ I _agree, and I’m the one flying,” Kara argued, and Lena snorted her amusement. She nodded though, and Kara grinned in satisfaction. 

“Well, what would you rebrand yourself to then?” Lena asked her, and she turned her body around to face Kara to show her attention. “I’m sure Cat Grant could help you with it.”

Kara chewed on her bottom lip for a second. “How do you feel about Superwoman?” she said hesitantly.

Lena smiled gently at her. “I think it suits you,” she said honestly. “But are you sure you wanna hang up that cape, love?”

“I… don’t know,” Kara said slowly. “I know I need a change. And Supergirl’s been my brand for _ years— _and changing that out feels…”

“Unnatural?” Lena supplied.

Kara nodded.

“Oh, honey.” Lena reached over and kissed her softly. “I’ll support you no matter what. If you want to change, if you don’t want to change, if you’re unsure. We’ll figure it out, okay?”

Kara smiled at her. “Okay.”

Lena tucked herself back underneath Kara’s chin, sighing out through her nose. Kara found her hand and entwined them together, squeezing her hand tightly before relaxing her grip to watch the rest of the movie. 

“Hey, Lena?”

“Mhm?”

“Why’s your hand shaking?”

She squeezed Kara’s hand back. She willed her hand to stop shaking and shrugged, knowing that Kara could feel it with them so close together.

“I guess I’m just cold.”

Kara kissed the top of her head and propped her chin. She squeezed Lena’s hand gently. “Then I’ll warm you up,” she mumbled, and Lena could already feel the warmth spreading from her heart to her hands. 

* * *

On Lena’s fortieth birthday, their entire family came down to Midvale for a one week celebration. “The best for my best girl,” Kara recited, and Lena only had the heart to punch her shoulder halfheartedly. 

Their girls were running around with their cousins, fighting over the last plate of cookies on the table. Kelly and Alex were trying to calm them down, while Nia helplessly tried to make a new batch of treats as fast as she could. 

Clark, who had come down with his own family, rocked a baby boy in his arms. When Kara left with a chaste kiss to her cheek and a promise to come back after grabbing her a new flute of champagne, he sided up to. 

“How are you, Lena?” he said kindly, and gave her a side hug. 

“Old,” she said wryly. Her response made Clark laugh, and she allowed herself to smile underneath her nearly empty glass. “But I suppose that’s to be expected when your entire family is congratulating you on the big four all day.”

When Clark smiled at her that time, it seemed rather sad. His blue eyes looked so much like Kara’s that she had to blink it away.

“I’m sorry if it’s a sensitive topic to talk about, but can I ask?” he said, his voice syrupy and gentle. He took a step toward her, but allowed her enough room to turn away from him if she wished. His hand slightly out to his side, Lena realized he was waiting to comfort her.

“Ask away,” she said, and waved a lazy hand towards his direction. She set her teeth.

Clark bounced his little boy in his arms. “Have you and Kara talked about it?” 

She didn’t need to ask what _ it _meant. Her voice unwavering, she answered, “A couple times. She doesn’t seem too bothered by it. Neither am I.”

Clark raised an eyebrow. “I feel like there’s a ‘but’ in there.”

Lena laughed. “But I think it’s because she’s in denial,” Lena finished, and Clark nodded his head in understanding. 

“Are you?”

She took her time with that one. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, tapping her fingers on the table to think of an answer. She had it, of course she did, but there was no way she could articulate a thought that could bear the weight of the world. 

It wasn’t like they were actively ignoring it either. While Lena didn’t look too old herself (some had even boldly told her that she looked so young for her age, right to her face), there were wrinkles. There were the stray strands of hair, and the depleted energy that Lena wished she could’ve kept. It was only a matter of time before Kara’s claims of achy joints and plain wardrobe choices would become obsolete in the wandering eyes of the public.

And, obviously, the inevitable fact of death. 

It felt like a taboo word in their house. They couldn’t even whisper it under their breaths, or insinuate it with a scrunch of the brow. For all they knew, death didn’t exist in their house. Not when they were together. 

“I think… it took me some time to adjust,” she finally said, and her own words felt like metal resting on her tongue. “But I’ve learned to accept it. It’s Kara that I’m worried about.” _ It’s always been Kara. _

“I’ll stay by her side,” Clark promised her.

Lena smiled at him. “I know. Thank you.” 

_ But I wish it was me instead._

* * *

In the summer heat of mid-July, Lena had her first stroke. 

Flown straight to the DEO, she was given medication and mandatory rest. Kara fussed over her the entire time, blaming herself for not coming fast enough to help. She babbled and sniffed, looking more distraught than Lena could ever imagine her being over a silly little accident.

“Lena, you _ fell _down the stairs! It could've been serious— it _is _serious!” Kara argued. She angrily wiped at her eyes. Even though Lena couldn’t see straight, the symbol on her chest was bright as ever. She put her hands on it. Kara didn’t stop her. “What would’ve happened if you didn’t have your signal watch with you? What if I didn’t fly fast enough?”

“I love you,” Lena said.

It only made Kara burst into frustrated tears. 

“I love you,” Lena said again, and watched as a blurry Alex touch Kara’s shoulder. “I’ll love you forever, if you let me.”

Soft lips pressed against her forehead. A hand in hers, Lena dropped her head and went back to sleep. Sleep, it turned out, felt much nicer than waking up to aches and migraines.

* * *

Kara asked her for a picnic date. _ Begged, _was a more accurate term. On a sunny morning of Lena’s free one day of the week, Kara lugged a giant picnic basic and a rolled up blanket. She cheered Lena on to climb the steep hill with her, holding her hand and gently hoisting her when needed. 

When they finally got to the top, Lena pressed her back to the tree and swigged her water bottle, prying it from her lips with a gasp that shook her entire chest. 

Kara’s smile immediately dissipated. 

“Are you okay?” she asked, and she was crouching by Lena’s side in an instant. 

“I’m fine.” Lena waved her away, twisting the cap of her water bottle and setting it on the grass. “I don’t know why that climb had me so winded. We used to race up and down here with the girls. Remember?”

The look Kara gave her looked so unbearably vulnerable. Vulnerable, sad, and almost lonely. 

“Yeah,” Kara said, clearing her throat to rid her voice of the scratchiness. “I guess I’ll have to fly you up here next time, huh?” she joked, and Lena laughed.

“You know what we should do later tonight?” Lena asked her thoughtfully.

“What’s that?”

“Star gazing.” Lena leaned forward. She almost laughed when Kara paused in taking the things out of their basket, looking like a dog that’s been told that they were going for a walk. “We can go wherever you want, and stay for as long as you want us to.”

“Really?” Kara split into a big grin. “You’re the best, you know that?”

“I’ve been told,” she teased.

“When we go, I have to show you something,” Kara said excitedly. She placed a bottle of wine in front of Lena. “NASA asked me if I wanted to name another star they found next to Argo City. I named it after you.”

“Me?” Lena blinked. “Why me? You’ve named like seven stars after me already.”

“Yeah, but this one’s really close to us,” Kara argued. “We can see it on Earth just above our house. So when I miss you, I could just look up, and you’d be right there.”

* * *

“You are the most gorgeous person I’ve ever met,” Kara told her on their thirtieth anniversary. She pressed their foreheads together. “You’re so stunning.”

“You’re just saying that,” Lena countered.

“Yeah, because it’s true.” Kara kissed her chastely. “You’re more beautiful than all of the planets and galaxies combined.”

They danced, right in the middle of their empty kitchen, their old record player playing something scratchy and out of tune, but they didn’t care. Not when they could hear each other’s heartbeats, beating rhythmically to the noiseless scuttles of their feet to a synchronized waltz. 

“Kara Danvers, you may think I’m beautiful, but you are the most remarkable thing the world will ever get to have,” Lena mumbled against her chest.

* * *

“You’re beautiful,” Kara said softly for the fourteenth time that night. “I don’t care how many times you point out that you’re not. It’s never going to change my mind.”

Because to Kara, Lena really was the loveliest thing, not even second to diamonds and stars and the cosmos. To Kara, she always will be, especially when Lena was here to smile at her so lovingly like that. 

So just for that night, Lena let her call her things as many times as she wanted. She wasn’t vain, she wasn’t even listening to half of Kara’s compliments— but saying those things made Kara’s eyes light up like a billion zircon-colored stars, and she wanted to stare at them for as long as she could, until she wasn't allowed to anymore. 

* * *

“I can’t do this.”

Kara sat in front of her, her face a hundred emotions that she locked away for so long. Lena wanted so badly to make it all go away.

“You are the bravest woman I’ve ever met, Kara,” Lena told her firmly. 

“But not—” Kara’s voice broke evenly in half. “Not watching you die. I can’t do that. _ Please _don’t make me do that. Lena, I can’t—”

And then she fell into Lena’s arms, sobbing and crying so hard that Lena could feel it right against her heart. She squeezed her eyes shut, holding up Kara as best as she could. 

“I love you, Kara Zor-El,” she mumbled against Kara’s hair. “I’m not going to leave you forever. You just have to look up. Remember?”

“It’s not the same,” Kara whispered with a hiccup.

“I was going to make an AI of myself for you. Just like with your mother.” Lena held her out at an arm’s length. She forced Kara’s eyes to look back at hers— steely green on mournful blue. “You know why I won’t do that? You don’t need a hologram to assure you that I’m here. I’m not leaving you, Kara. I’ll always be here for you.”

Her words seemed to calm Kara down. She stopped sniffling enough to nod, smiling at Lena through streaked stains on her cheeks. 

There was a reason why _ till death do us apart _wasn’t in their vows. 

“Would it be selfish if I asked you to love me forever?” Lena admitted quietly.

“No,” Kara said. She held onto Lena’s arms like a lifeline. “Because I’ll love you endlessly even if you didn’t ask me to.”

* * *

On a hospital bed in the quiet ward in the DEO (“It’s the least I could do,” J’onn told them with the barest hint of a frown), Lena was around the ones she loved the most. Kara held onto her arm tightly like a vice, tears barely contained and her frame so distant from the strong stance of Supergirl.

“Take care of each other,” Lena said to Clark. Her voice was only above a whisper.

He nodded grimly. She almost laughed, if it didn’t hurt, at the fact that he looked so young and strong, but sad enough to bare the trauma of five separate generations. 

“Kara,” she mumbled out, and her soulmate’s name on her tongue felt like a last prayer. Kara squeezed her hand to let her know that she was listening. “I know I should be saying goodbye to you, but it doesn’t feel like one.”

Unable to speak, Kara nodded her head. 

Lena tried her best to smile. “You made all of this worth it,” she said. “I’m sorry if you think my love wasn’t enough. Or that it was too short.”

“No.” Kara shook her head vigorously. She sniffled, cracking a broken smile down at her. The crinkles in her eyes made Lena smile more genuinely. “I love you. And I’ll carry what we had for the rest of my life, I _ promise. _”

_ “El mayarah,” _Lena recited to her. “We’ll see each other soon. You just have to look up, darling.”

When her steady beeping of the machine became shrill and drawn, Kara kept holding her hand. She pressed an unsteady kiss to Lena’s forehead, ignoring the clamor of nurses and doctors walking around her. 

There was a lot of Supergirl around for the next few years. There was also a lot of Superman by her side. The media praised them for taking their jobs more seriously, though some empaths wished the Supers a happy life, in case their immortality had recently been becoming more of a curse than a blessing. 

Generation after generation, Supergirl was a constant in National City. She branched out to other cities and planets in their galaxy, always helping and always smiling at those in need. Kara Danvers had her headstone right next to Lena Luthor in sunny Midvale, months after Lena’s passing.

For decades, she was Supergirl, and only ever Supergirl.

On a sunny afternoon overlooking the cliff side, Kara sat down beside her cousin. She tilted her head to the clouds and closed her eyes, letting the yellow sun fill her bones with warmth that made her feel like the strongest person on Earth. She would never admit it out loud, but sunbeams only made her feel that way because of Lena— because with the sun, she couldn’t help but think of her, the light in her life that beamed directly into her heart. 

“I’m tired,” she said simply. She didn’t look over at Clark.

“Me too,” he told her. 

There was a beat of silence between them.

“It’s not selfish to go now,” Clark said quietly. “You’ve done more than your fair share of helping the world.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” she answered stubbornly.

“You won’t be.” Clark pointed at the stars above them. It was odd to see the twinkling lights on such a bright day, but Kara batted it away as a gift of her Kryptonian physiology. There was always a possibility, however, that it came down to more than that. “They’re all right there. Looking at us, watching us. They’re waiting for you to come home.”

“How about you?” Kara asked him gently.

“I want to see them again.” He took an even breath. “But I know my destiny is to stay here. And protect other people.”

“That’s my destiny too.”

Clark smiled at her sadly. “I don’t think it is,” he said. “It’s not selfish, Kara. I want this. You don’t. Go home, cousin— I can take care of this by myself.”

“I don’t want to leave you here,” she argued.

“She misses you, Kara.” Clark took her hands in his. “And I know she’s waiting for you out there, until she could love you for another eternity.”

After fighting with herself and Clark, Kara decided that it was time.

She flew out of Earth’s orbit and away from the sun as far as she could. Out in zero gravity with no sounds or things to feel or hear, Kara was afraid. But when she shut her eyes, she could feel her body steadily calming.

She could see Lena, coming towards her, smiling with that gorgeous smile and a stride that made Kara want to sob.

And all she could think about, while squeezing out the last of her breath, was Lena, who took her hand and smiled so lovingly that Kara couldn’t feel the slack of her body until she pried her eyes open.

* * *

“You’re beautiful,” Lena told her. 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was brought to you by "A Writing Exercise/Break That Went Out of Control"
> 
> My [Tumblr](https://cosmiccaptain.tumblr.com/) (@cosmiccaptain) | My [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cosmicpandas?s=17) (@cosmicpandas)!


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